Careful with your vows

Eccles. 5:4-7

4 When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. 5 It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. 6 Let not your mouth lead you [1] into sin, and do not say before the messenger [2] that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? 7 For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; [3] but God is the one you must fear.

Footnotes
[1] 5:6 Hebrew your flesh
[2] 5:6 Or angel
[3] 5:7 Or For when dreams and vanities increase, words also grow many

• What was involved in an Israelite making a vow to God? [See Numbers 30, Deut. 23:21-23]
  
• What does Solomon call a person who is late in paying their vow to God?
  - Was a vow required or voluntary?
  - Why might a person make a vow to God?
  
• Which was better: no vow or broken vow?
  
• How could a person's speech cause them to sin?
  
• What might be the outcome a person's foolish vow?
  
• When have you foolishly committed to do something and not done it?
  - How often does this occur?
  - Why did you commit to do it?
  - What caused you to fail?
  - Could you have predicted the failure beforehand?
  
• When have you carelessly made a vow and broken it?
  - How often does this occur?
  - When have you done this to or before God?
  
• Why are dreams and many words empty?
  - How are they related to your fear of God?

Harold's Musings:
At work I have a really strong tendency to over commit. As I have gotten older, I've gotten a bit wiser and more likely to say "No", but it is a struggle. I don't usually consider these commitments vows, at least not in the same way as wedding vows. Yet if I stop to think about it, when I commit to do something I am essentially vowing to do it. We may do this before God. We promise God we will stop doing a particular sin. We don't state "try"; instead we promised to do. When we fail to stop (and we usually do fail to stop), we have now two sins: the problem sin and the broken promise. Once again God warns, be careful with your words.

Beast Taming

James 3:7-12

7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.

• Why would James state that no one can tame the tongue?
  
• Why are you more likely to say bad things about your fellow man than about God?
  
• When are you more likely to lash out, put down, or otherwise say bad about others?
  
• What prompts your tongue to get out of control?
  
• What is the real source of "tongue" problems?
  
• How does focusing on the outside problem (tongue) keep us from dealing with the inside problem (self-oriented, self-protection)?

Harold's Musings:
It is tempting to spend our energy on controlling our tongue without addressing the source of the fire that your tongue can produce. Jesus said in Matthew 15:18-20 that what was in the heart determined what came from the mouth. So we are back to our self-serving, self-reliant, easily tempted self. Should you think before you speak? Absolutely! Should you look deep inside (or maybe not so deep in some cases) and find the unloving, unbelieving attitudes that generated the desire to say something beastly? Absolutely! I think I need to go look down my mouth using a mirror.

Tongue the Terrible

James 3:1-6

3:1 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2 For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. 3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. 4 Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.

• Why did James jump immediately from being a teacher to controlling the tongue?
  
• How does this discourse on the tongue relate to the previous passage on claiming to have faith?
  
• In what areas do you have to struggle with your tongue?
  
• Why is the tongue so difficult to control?
  
• When has your tongue been like the fire in verse 6?
• When have you made disparaging remarks about someone because of their life situation?
  

Harold's Musings:
Yeah, I know I covered this before, but it is the next passage in line and, hey, it is an important issue to discuss. When I look at this passage in its context, something pops out. Earlier James talked about partiality and how we treat others. He then went to faith and works with an example of the needs of the poor not being met by words alone. Now he looks at teachers and tongue. Could he be considering the teacher who proclaims their faith and understanding of scripture but doesn't show it by action? Could it be that a teacher, who has a position of influence, is making remarks that show partiality and thereby teaches partiality? I've heard preachers and teachers make "humorous" remarks about groups of people. Doesn't that say to their audience that it is OK to think poorly of that group? What are you going to teach with your actions and tongue today? Partiality or God's love?

The standard is high

Deuteronomy 6:4-9
4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

• What part of your life is allowed to be untouched by God's words?
• What does your environment say about who your God is?
• What does your conversation say about who your God is?
• How does merely surrounding yourself with Christian stuff achieve what God wants?
• What would your life look like if you were striving to live up to this passage?
• What does this passage say about what God really wants from you?